Accessible Homes with Realtor Susan Janzen

Episode Summary:

In this informative episode of ‘Forever Home for Our Kids with Disabilities’, I sit down with resilience coach, accessibility advocate, and realtor Susan Janzen. Fun fact about Susan – she is the lead singer of the Trocadero Orchestra and an accomplished recording artist. Together, we explore the importance of accessible home design, community support, and sustainable living solutions for families raising children and caring for adults with disabilities.

Susan shares how she came to be in the special needs world. Susan introduces us to inspiring professionals she collaborates with in her realtor role, like an Edmonton architect passionate about "visitability" and a builder creating fully accessible garage suites.

Your host shares the story behind her daughter’s Forever Home — a beautifully accessible bungalow that required almost no modification. We dive into practical strategies for home design, including ramps, porch lifts, and wheelchair-friendly bathrooms.

We also touch on:

* The challenges of aging in place

* Why so many older homes are ill-equipped for accessibility

* The emotional impact of being unable to visit loved ones due to physical barriers

* How thoughtful design can change lives

Susan’s passion for building community shines as she shares her vision of a supportive space for caregivers and families of individuals with adaptive needs. From her daughter’s consulting group to potential retreats and virtual coffee chats, Susan is committed to helping families feel seen, supported, and empowered.

Key Takeaways:

* Accessibility begins at the entrance — and every detail matters

* Community collaboration is essential to long-term solutions

* Self-care is not optional: it’s vital for caregivers

* You are not alone — and there is a growing network ready to help

Connect with Susan:

Website: [www.suejanzen.ca](http://www.suejanzen.ca)

LinkedIn: [Susan Janzen](https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-janzen)

Facebook: [Susan Whalen Janzen](https://www.facebook.com/susanwhalenjanzen)

Podcast: Living and Loving Each Day: Bridging Barriers (Available on Spotify)

Janzen Consulting Group: [www.janzenconsultinggroup.com](http://www.janzenconsultinggroup.com)

Final Words of Encouragement:

“You are not alone. There’s no judgment here — just support, practical tips, and a community that gets it.”

Keep building your child’s future

Live with Intention - Embrace the Journey.

If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe and leave a review! It helps other families like yours find support and guidance. Please help spread the word!

Connect with me:  

hello@hello.coachingwithvalerieanne.com 

Music Acknowledgement: Audio Coffee - Denys Kyshchuk

Editor: Scott Arbeau

Link for book: The S.H.I.N.E. Principle: The special needs mom's path to strength, hope and happiness by Valerie Arbeau

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CW18ZXGX (Canada)

https://a.co/d/03hFdZI4 (United States)

Learn more about your host at:
https://coachingwithvalerieanne.com/

Transcript

So I really try hard to match the people who've done the work retrofitted in place. And then I really look for buyers to say, hey, this is already in place. You don't have to do anything. It's ready to go. So that's kind of one of my priorities is to just always be up on those two, either sellers that have lifts in place or ramps in place. I'm saying for heaven's sakes, don't get rid of that ramp. Let me try to find you a buyer first. Yes. Right. Yeah. So I'm that's kind of how I work that. So that's what I'm always looking for is number one, the safety, accessibility, that there's barrier free, you can actually get in the door. Have a mobile electric wheelchair or, you know, just one that's being pushed. So, yeah, that's kind of what I look for.

Cool, cool.

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Forever Home for our kids with

disabilities. I'm your host Valerie, Mum to to with disabilities, one visible and one invisible. 

Today's guest is Susan Janzen. She is a champion of resilience, accessibility advocate and an accomplished performer. Susan is a multifaceted professional who combines her passions as a resilience coach, podcast host and licensed realtor specializing in accessible homes. Yay. A survivor of the foster care system and has been a single mom for six years, Susan's journey has fueled her commitment to empowering others as the lead singer of the Trocadero Orchestra and an accomplished recording artist. She brings a unique artistic flair to her coaching. Susan is also a certified Jay Shetty confidence and resilience coach, helping individuals, especially parents of children with adaptive needs, build emotional resilience and find lasting happiness. Through her podcast Living and Loving Each Day, Bridging Barriers, she shares inspiring parent stories of resilience and features experts who provide support and practical strategies for overcoming life's challenges. With a deep understanding of caregiving dynamics, Susan fosters a supportive community where individuals can thrive. 

Welcome Susan.

Thank you for the beautiful introduction. Thank you. Thank you. I always feel like a chameleon. I do so many things, but I don't, I try

not to apologize for that. I really do. Thank you Valerie for having me.

I appreciate this. 

You're so very welcome. And like I say, we only pass this way once, so we might as well grab all that we can of life as we're giving to others. So I just appreciate you.

Thank you. And you. Thank you. 

All right. So Susan, tell us a little about your connection to the special needs community.

Wow. So my connection. I think I never know how far back to go, but I was a special ed teacher. Once I was married, my second husband, who's a psychologist, my dream was to go to university. And so at

38 years old I took extra stuff to get in and I got in and I got my special education degree and graduated after four years. And I was 42 years old. 

At the time, my children were in junior high. And at the time, I just love that age kids. 

When I was in the foster care system, as you stated, I was also in an all girls convent in here, in Edmonton in the early 60s. And I was grade three, four and five. There were six nuns and 100 little girls like me. And I heard that one of the nuns actually say out loud to my mother who was on the phone, they called me to the office, and I heard the sister say, “Well, Susie is retarded, you know.” I heard her say that… out loud. And it was like, I don't remember thinking, I was only nine. I ingested that somehow, though.

Anyway, so I remember going downstairs after my call to my mom, I checked in with her and stuff. And then there's two girls that were down syndrome, two of our hundred, and they were older than me. I was nine, I think they were 14 or 16 or something. I started just going to them and just kind of playing with them and spending time with them. I really felt like you're my tribe here. Isn't funny how that works? I'm still processing that.

I'll figure that one out still yet. I've got time. But anyway, so when I did my special ed, that was kind of my feeling like I understand you. I’m here for you. You're not different. You're not weird. You’re special and I want to help you. So that was my goal going into that.

And then, when I married my second husband, his oldest son is schizophrenic. And not paranoid schizophrenic, thank heavens, but you know, chronic schizophrenia. So I was thinking, boy, my training just came in really handy here as a new bride too. His son was a bit older and I was an advocate for him like crazy.

And then now currently, my two kids, married and they both have two children. And my daughter currently had a baby and at eight weeks old, her daughter had near SIDS. My daughter went to do dishes, came up at nine thirty at night, looked at the crib and she was blue in the crib. So my daughter called the ambulance. She ran next door. There was a nurse that lived next door, called her. The nurse came across to resuscitate her. And then she ended up at Stollery Hospital for five weeks and the doctor basically said to my daughter, she won't talk, she won't walk, she can't eat on her own, you need feeding tubes, you can take her home. We thought she was going to die. I mean, that was like the best news of the whole universe, you can take her home. It was like, wow. So now, my granddaughter, Kalea, is twelve. She's in a special school. She has cerebral palsy and she also has cortical vision impairment. So she sees light, and I’ve shown her every single light under my kitchen cupboard. You know how you could change your lights on the remote? And I'll ask her, what is that Kalea? She goes orange, green, red, like she knows them all. But she can't see us. She sees light and color, her eyes are fine. It's just the processing. So that was another introduction. So I have all this opportunity around me.

And then that's when I started doing real estate. My mom was in a wheelchair and has COPD, has an oxygen tank. And that was also on my mind. So I was thinking, how can people look at homes if they can't even get up the stairs? Like, this is ridiculous. So I specialize in that accessible barrier free. So, does that answer your question? I have a whole trail of reasons why I do what I do.

No, that totally answers my question. Thank you so much. And what I'm seeing from all of that is you are touched in many different ways in the special needs community. Your daughter who's first born, I can't even imagine dealing with near SIDS. I cannot imagine. And coming and seeing that your baby is blue. 

For us as parents, my husband and I, we have two. So our oldest has cerebral palsy and we had a prolapsed cord. So the cord came out first, cut off the oxygen supply. We had an emergency C-section. And they basically didn't give her the weekend to live. But praise God, she is still here. She's going to be 23 on the weekend. 

Oh, that's wonderful. 

Total gift, total gift. 

Yes, I agree. Yeah. 

But I think just to come to the point of the near-SIDS, the only experience that I would have with that is my oldest daughter is Melody-Anne. So she was having a hard time with her breathing. So her respiratory system was compromised. And I think that's what they thought would take her, that she would just get a respiratory infection. She wouldn't be able to kick it. And that would move her out of this and to rest. And so we, my husband and I remember lots of times in the first few years, well first probably two years of her life where she was struggling to breathe and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I'm a physical therapist. That's my vocation for many years. And I've worked in ICU, I've worked on respiratory units. And so seeing my child not being able to breathe, well, struggling with it and knowing that there wasn't anything I could do, even though I had the skills of a physiotherapist was so difficult. So that's my only kind of connection with what your daughter must have been going through to see her daughter not breathing and blue and to have the wherewithal to go and get help. Kudos to her and I'm so grateful that she was able to bring her to a life where she's now 12 and enjoying life. So that's just an amazing experience to be able to give life and sort of restore life somewhat and see her thrive.

And she's thriving now exactly. Candace has been there every step just helping her. And every little step as she got older Candace taught her the other things or manipulated some furniture to make sure that she was able to access things that she wanted to and, like she's done a lot!

And I think that mama bear instinct kicks in. I know for me, it was okay, they've told us we only have a year, we're going to make the best of it. And so just teaching your children because I'm sure Candace is the same. I just wanted my child to have as much of an experience of life as any other child her age. 

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. 100%. Yeah. 

And so that was our motto and that's what we did. And every year she just rises to the challenge and just shows us more. And when we have

learned, and I'm sure Candace and you are the same, you learn so much

from your children, from your grandchildren. You would never have had an experience with that had you not had them the way that they are.

Exactly. No, she brings us joy every day and she's funny, really funny. She's really, she says the weirdest things, we're not looking at each other. Whoa. And she remembers things from like three weeks ago, you know “Are you eating another hamburger grandma?”. Like, she'll just say things like out of the blue and just reminding us of things that had happened and she's right every time. Yeah. She's really smart.

Yes. Yes. And I find that that's a bit of a disservice, I think sometimes with humans, is that we look at the disability, we don't see the person. And that just breaks my heart because I know when people look at my child, they just see the wheelchair. And it just is frustrating because my child does understand, she may not be able to speak to you, she uses a communication device. 

Is she okay? 

Yes. And she may kind of, you know, take a few minutes to process something, but she is very smart, same, is able to process and if you give her time, she can respond to you. But I remember, I have two. So my youngest is curly, curly hair. Actually, she looked a lot like Shirley Temple, but she was, I'm married to a Caucasian, so she took more of the white gene. And so she looked a lot like Shirley Temple with the curly, curly hair and the big, big eyes. And I remember when we used to go places because she was so cute, people would just gravitate to her and just kind of overlook my oldest child that was in the wheelchair. So that was kind of sad. But I am pleased to say that I had to get over that and it took time, but I had an aide that worked with us that was really good at just drawing

people in. “Oh, hey, this is Melody-Anne, she can't say hello to you, but you can say hello to her. She understands everything you say.” So just watching Kathy work with my child, then just gave me the confidence to be able to sort of have my child included and not overlooked.

Oh, so important. That is so important. And they can speak… we have to remind, we do that too. We like remind Candice especially, like reminds, you know, she'll say, "Claire, say hi." And then, we have to just explain it. Just touch her shoulder or touch her hand and say hi and or talk and she'll know and she looks right where they're speaking from. She hears she's so good that way. So we just have to educate people, right? We just have to let them know this is okay. And you might feel uncomfortable if you say hi, she'll happily talk to you.

Yeah, exactly. So Susan, tell us how you transitioned from being a special education teacher to what you're doing now.

Well ok the real estate thing happened like I was actually teaching for six years. So got to know the kids because I know how troublesome that is when you walk into a room and you're a stranger. So, I was really busy every single day I taught. And I was sometimes at different schools from

the community, learning skills with those guys, and they were all 16, 17, 18 years old. And at the time I phoned the public school board to say, I really want my own classroom, like, I really want one place to go. This has been six years. And I said explain this to me. And they said, No, your, your file is glowing. You've got all very positive feedback. It's just that we have no money and no position for you. We have no classroom for you, which was really weird. That was in 2004 or 5. I think it was a budget issue, right? So that's when I started thinking about being a realtor and being able to go out every day and then that's when I started thinking about you know, the accessibilities thing. When Kalea was born and this all happened, that's when I switched my priority. 

And then, I shared with you Rick Hansen is somebody that I had met.

In Edmonton we have the Klondike days, used to be a really big thing. I was auditioned and was chosen as the first local Klondike Kate in 1985, 86. Rick Hansen was coming through the city of Edmonton on Highway two at this time. So I got a call from the people who hired me the city of Edmonton and they said, we're going to send you over in a car. It's a hatchback. When he (Rick Hansen) gets to this point, you jump out and you welcome him to the city of Edmonton and shake his hand and then jump back in the car. It's like, excuse me. It's like, okay, you want me to do what? And so I jumped out and I welcomed him. He was just so nice. And I remember that so clearly. And then now fast forward when I was a realtor and into the accessible barrier free thing. I was at one of 20 people invited downtown, Edmonton Western Hotel because Rick Hansen was coming in and promoting his accessibility certification. And he was talking all about accessibility and I've gotten invited to this thing. It was so cool. It was so cool. And so then when he walked in, I showed him the picture that I have that was on the front page of the Edmonton Journal. He said, I remember that. And I said, well, now I'm doing accessible barrier free homes in real estate. And so I got to take a picture of me shaking hands the same way, which was really super cool. And so that was another opportunity to move forward in that ring. And so that's when the real estate, you know, was full time for me. And now he has this, of course, his foundation for accessibility and certification for that. And I was considering doing that, but it's more in the commercial like public where I deal more with just single family homes.

So that's amazing. It seems like fate would have you sort of, you know, move in the right direction to come to where you're coming. Just all the experiences that you've had in life, you know, your special education training, having a granddaughter with special needs, having a chance to meet Rick Hansen, and then later again in life as you'd moved into this new realm of being a realtor and working with accessible homes. So I love that you're doing that. I know for us, I had not even thought about accessibility until I had my oldest  daughter, Melody Anne. And now I don't know about you, but I very much, everywhere I go, I'm checking for accessibility. 

I'm almost checked in the door and I go, excuse me, that's, door's not working. Can you get that fixed, please? I know I'm an advocate now. I'm like kind of a bulldog. I mean, now about that. And then, excuse me, don't park here. This is, my daughter's coming with a wheelchair and she needs to, you know, get, yeah, I'm bad actually for that.

And that's not such a bad thing because the other thing I notice as well is when I look at curbs, I'm like, okay, so you're supposed to park your vehicle here and then you got to walk all the way over there to find a curb that's lowered so you can get onto the sidewalk. So all of these little things that I'd never even considered before, and it's not just for people in wheelchairs, I'm thinking of moms with strollers. Same thing, right?

For people in walkers, I mean, it's free. And it says handicap parking right there and this yellow stripe with a black stripes on it. It's like, well, how do I get over that? Like, I mean, just, yeah.

Yes. Still, I know it's good to see that there's been some work done, but I believe there's definitely a ways to go. 

So much more.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So take us now to an accessible home.

What kind of things are we looking at in an accessible home?

Well, just entry is the number one. You know, once you get in, it's got to be accessible so you can actually get in. I've actually phoned people on the realtor site. Sometimes it says, it pops up for me, because I have a key search typed in for a barrier free accessible home. When I used to phone the board to say, how do I tell for my people in a wheelchair, and I do a lot of work with people coming out of the spinal cord injury and the hospital, and they call me to say, okay, we've got to move out of our house, we've got to, we need a new place. So I'm the first person that they call when they're looking. So, I would phone realtors, I would see their listings, I'd go, there's like five concrete stairs to your door. Tell me why you, you wrote in there ‘accessible’, because it popped up for me. And it's popping up for my customers. This is not right. You're misleading us. It's not true. So explain to me how you came about…. Oh, we just thought, well, inside, it's a bungalow. It's like, well, yeah, but you got to get access. Or, they send me a condo that's on the seventh floor. And then there's like 10 steps. But they say, oh, well, there's an elevator. I say, well, how are they supposed to get from the street to the elevator? You know, just share that with me. So, I’m educating as I'm going with that. So I'm always looking for accessibility. And the other thing is really the safety issue. I mean, we got to be safe. And there's certain things that you see that are not safe. One condo I sold downtown Edmonton, they had totally renovated it, put the counters lower, and they made it underneath access so you can roll up with your knees to cook. And wonderful things like that.

So I really try hard to match the people who've done the work retrofitted the place. And then I really look for buyers to say, ‘Hey, this is already in place. You don't have to do anything.’ It's ready to go. So that's kind of one of my priorities is to just always be up on those two, either sellers that have lifts in place or ramps in place. I'm saying for heaven's sakes, don't get rid of that ramp. Let me try to find you a buyer first. Yes. Right. Yeah. So, that's kind of how I work that. So that's what I'm always looking for is number one, the safety, accessibility, that there's barrier free, you can actually get in the door. Have a mobile electric wheelchair or, you know, just one that's being pushed. So, yeah, that's kind of what I look for.

Cool, cool. We were blessed with the home that my daughter has we call that her Forever Home and hence the name of the podcast. So we were blessed with that home. A couple had been in there where the wife had MS so they had custom built this bungalow. But you're so right. Not being able to get in does not make it accessible. So they had put a big ramp in the garage. And so that's how they access the home. So we were really grateful, really grateful that they put in the three foot doors. So not only is it easy enough to get the wheelchairs in, but it makes it easy to get furniture in.

Exactly. 

And then they did this beautiful like to 'die for' bathroom with skylight and glass blocks for the window and then they did glass blocks to block off the shower. So it's a roll in shower, big tub. They left the ceiling track system, which was great. So we could get her in. The counters were low enough and no cupboards under the sink. So a wheelchair could roll up. So it was really well thought out and it was such a blessing for us to find that because we didn't have to do anything to it. What we did do though is we took out the ramp that they put in because it took up half the garage. And so we actually put in a porch lift. 

A lift. Yeah. 

Yes. 

Yeah. Good. 

And so now that the home is a Forever Home, kind of like a group home, one of the things that we've had to do is put in a ramp as well because should electricity fail, the people in wheelchairs still need to be able to get out. So we do have a ramp now at the front of the house so that people can get in and out using the ramp. And then we also have the porch lift still in the garage.

Right. Exactly. And then I work with a fellow who is an architect in the city of Edmonton. We used to have a councilman in the 60s he was in a wheelchair. He had a car accident and spinal cord injury. And then he had a son and I saw that he was an architect and he was an architect because he wanted to make homes visitable. He said, you wouldn't believe my dad could never go visit anybody because there was no ramps. So that's really huge so we try to collaborate as much as we can. And he's always building exactly accessible and helping people redesign their home, if necessary. Because some people don't want to move out of their house. So they want to make it accessible. So then he's the guy I sent them to. 

Cool. Neat. Well, I love that you have a collaboration with someone and I love the fact that he's brought up the fact that it's hard to get people to visit. So it's so true. It's so true. And when I look at homes that have been built for, you know, years ago, there was no thought to the bathroom. No thought to the bathroom at all. So tiny. And because people are living longer and people in wheelchairs are out in the community and doing things, it just makes it very much impossible to take them anywhere. The bathroom in the house that my husband and I and our youngest moved into to create the Forever Home for our oldest, I'm just like, what were they thinking? The bedroom is enormous. Truly. And yet the bathroom is so tiny. My husband and I have to dance around each other. I’m like, when we, hopefully we want to age in place. Yes. But trying to get a walker in there is going to be pretty impossible. Forget a commode, forget a wheelchair. It's just not going to happen. So we are going to have to modify, which is on our list of things to do our bathroom, and just take some of the space that's in the bedroom that we don't need, to put it in the bathroom.

You don't understand it until you're there, until you actually are in the position where now I'm in a wheelchair and how do I get around here? That's when you realize. I have a lot of specialists around. I even have a fellow who was on one of my podcasts, Ron Whitman, talks specifically about bathrooms and one is about entrances and the importance of that. He did all his architectural talk. He was really, he's very accomplished. But there's another fellow who actually builds, they're called, like we have a lot of lots in our city that are older homes, but he builds, some people call it a garage home or a garage suite. It's in your backyard. But what this fella does, his name is Aaron, and what he does is he puts in an elevator and makes it 100% accessible. So if you have a beautiful big home and you get MS, for instance, and you're older, he could build this thing on your backyard from where your garage was, use the frame, you go in through the elevator, everything is accessible upstairs, and you have usually two bedrooms, one bathroom, your office, whatever you need, and then you have your elevator down into the garage again, so you have access to your vehicle. So, he's doing that in our city. So that is super cool. Yeah, so he came on the podcast a few times. So I like reaching out to people who are actually doing something and say, this is where or who you can call because this is somebody who could really help you. Wouldn't that be great though if you think about all these people who are in these beautiful homes that they've lived in for 40 years, and they don't really want to move away, they want to stay, but, so they could rent out their beautiful bungalow here and live in the the accessible loft.

Absolutely. 

It's like a win-win. 

Absolutely, because you're providing a home for someone else, you're getting some passive income. Hey, why not?

Exactly, exactly. So there's lots of opportunities out there now, like you said, it didn't used to be, it was like nobody was thinking back in the 60s, I guess. Isn’t that funny? People were in wheelchairs back then, but they were just not accommodated or not even thought of considering for the accessibility issue.

Absolutely. I find too, and I wonder, are there more people choosing to still live in the community in their homes with their disability and stuff? And then the other thing as well is people are living longer, like our children, my child, she wasn't supposed to live past a year. And here she is, she's going to be 23. And I know a lot of people that are wheelchair bound because of, you know, the advances in medical technology that people are living a whole lot longer. So my hope and prayer is that my child will live well into her 40s, if not beyond, but at one time, she probably wouldn't have gotten much past 20. So I think people need to be, and I'm thinking when I say people, I'm thinking builders. And I see that it's happening. They're being more conscious of, you know, places need to have a bit more space so that wheelchairs can be turning around, that there's a radius for turning around a wheelchair, that people can age in place because people are living longer with MS. Because they used to go to hospital or an institution, they didn't stay in their homes because they weren't able to be accommodated in their homes. I think that, you know, cities are now kind of looking at, okay, how can we keep people in their homes for longer and work for them?

There are options now. I appreciate that, you know, and I try to facilitate that.

I love that you're doing that kind of work and I love that you're collaborating and I'm learning things. I'm like, I think I need to talk to this guy, Ron, and this guy, Aaron, because it's just neat to know that there are people in this field that are trying to make a difference for people that have a disability, so they can stay where they want to stay. And they can visit because that is huge, because a lot of people don't get out of their homes because they can't get out, number one, or they can't get into somebody else's house to visit. I mean, just think about how many Christmases, family Christmases some people are missing because they can't get to their child's home or to get to see their kid's home or get to see their grandchildren in their home. It's sad. So I'm really glad to see that people are making an effort to let's make life a little different and make it a little more joyful for some of these people. Yes. 

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I love it too.

All right. So just before we wrap up, Susan, I know self-care is a huge thing for you. So can you speak to the importance of self-care? Most of us know it, but it's good to be reminded.

My thought is that you can't pour from an empty cup. I'm working with my daughter now, and she, she always had a nonprofit, and she helps people, and she wants to provide information. Like, what do you do when you get out of the hospital and all these things? And so my podcast is focused now on those parents and caregivers of children with adaptive needs. And my daughter is a consultant. So somebody could phone her to just come into my house and tell me what can I do to encourage my child and ask questions that, because I remember when she came out of the hospital, we were looking at each other, deer in the headlights. What do we do? And what is FSCD? And what is all these agencies that can help us? And what do we have allowed? Like just all the questions are so much. We want to make sure through my podcast coming up now, Living and Loving Each Day, Bridging Barriers that, you know, we have the people to help you get through those barriers. So that's what she's doing. But, but the self-care for me has come up quite a few times on my podcast when I first started. I've done about 180 podcasts now. And when I first started, I just invited anybody who wanted to be on my podcast because you're living and loving each day. And then you'd, I admire you and just share what you do. So I didn't really have a theme where now I have a theme. And that's what these adaptive needs, parents and caregivers and the children too, because now we have a lot more adults with, you know, neurodivergent and all that stuff. But the self-care thing, we know for a fact that you're just, and we want to reassure people that you're doing your best. You're giving it everything you got. And we appreciate and you know, you're supported. Like you are in a place where people understand what you're doing. You don't have to explain how you're feeling about having a special needs child. Like we get it. Been there, done that. And we can help you. And so the, just thebiggest thing is you can't pour from empty cups. You have to just take care of yourself. You have to make sure that one time the respite worker comes every third time is the time you have a bubble bath or, you go get your hair done. You have to take the time and not feel guilty about it and not feel shame about it. Because how are you going to be the best that you can be for your, your child if you're tired and worn out and you know, and, and there's so much stress that is, that goes a lot. People don't understand. People who are parents understand what parents go through. And people who understand parents with adaptive needs children, whole other network. There's things that the children who don't have adaptive needs. They don't even consider like we did with wheelchairs on the curb, right? Like you don't understand and know it until you are actually in that place. So, and, and we're trying through this new, my new focus on my podcast is just let's have a community. Let's bring it together. And we're even going to, we're thinking it hasn't happened yet or we’re there, we got to keep in touch because we want to do like a weekly, get together on Zoom and just have the parents, just no agenda. You guys just talk about things, you know, like, let’s have coffee and conversation together. It doesn't matter where you're sitting and you don't have to get up and move anybody. And then also we want to have like specialists come in once a month to our website and the community just to say like, what are your questions? I'm going to get somebody in to talk just to our group, our community. And I want to just grow that community. And then I was telling my daughter, maybe then we could have like a retreat in town somewhere where the parents can go. And but the kids could be taken care of. I don't know. I'm just thinking, I'm brainstorming. I'm just thinking all these great things we could do as a community. Like we are a vital community and we want to just support each and every one of them. So I just want to share that we know you're doing your best and we want to help and support you.

Yes. All right. Love it. Love it. Okay, Susan, where can our audience go to find more about you?

So I have a website. My website is called Sue Janzen dot C A and that's the J-A-N-Z-E-N and also I am on LinkedIn, Spotify. My big band is there. I have a whole bunch of stuff on Facebook and there I am, Susan Whalen Janzen, because that was my maiden name that I sang under. I just did that in case there's people my age that remember. There's some of us out there that are still on Facebook. And my daughter is actually Janzen Consulting Group dot com. And that's where she's offering to be a consultant to help you answer all your questions and she’s been there, done that. So…

Yeah, love it. Thank you so much. Susan, before we conclude our conversation, do you have any words of encouragement for parents who are raising kids with disabilities?

Just that you're not alone, that there are so many of us there that just no one understands you so well, and that we know you're doing your best. And we know that we can maybe offer a little bit of support and guidance and practical tips and strategies. Whatever you, if you come to us and ask, what I really want and curious about this, we'll find out for you and we'll bring it to the whole group. You know, would you just know that you're not alone and we're all here on your side. No judgment.

Awesome. Love it. Susan, thank you so much for your time. It's been

Just a joy to be able to chat with you and learn a little bit more about what you're doing and how you're helping in our community. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

I appreciate you and all you're doing too. This is great. I really appreciate you, Valerie. Thank you so much.

You're so welcome. So audience, I want you to remember:

Keep building your child's future

Live with Intention - Embrace the Journey.